The Red and Blue Soccer Chat - 12/27/23

The Red and Blue Soccer Chat

Happy Holidays, Reds and Blues! We hope it’s been a festive season for you and your families. And while results have not been going as well as either of us would like, we truly appreciate your support and look forward to bringing you more in the New Year. The footballing gods decided to have some fickle fun these past few days. Let’s see what they’ve had in store for our lads.

Chelsea’s stop-start season continued throughout December. After losing 2-0 to Everton they recovered with a same scoreline victory over Sheffield, followed by a scrappy win on penalties against Newcastle in the Carabao Cup. But they failed yet again to build on their performances with a loss away to a Wolves side also struggling for consistency. They have a chance to finish out December with a win at home in another London derby against a floundering Palace side followed by a trip to tricky Luton. In the wake of Poch admitting that he doesn’t believe the club can achieve its objectives this season, it will perhaps be up to the senior players to prove him wrong.

Meanwhile, Manchester United showed fearless defensive resilience away to Anfield; stealing a point. But that effort appeared to take too much out of an already fragile side, as they followed up that impressive performance with a limp loss away to the Hammers. Many fans would have either feared the worse or hoped for just some effort against Aston Villa. And those thoughts seemed well-founded after a dismal 45 minutes saw them 2-0 down at the break from 2 terribly defended set pieces and little more from Villa. Erik must have borrowed a hair dryer from Sir Alex, or perhaps these obviously talented but brittle young players finally realized the extent of their potential. Regardless of the impetus, it was on full display in a wild 2nd half. United had the ball in the net early only for VAR to intervene, but that seemed to spur them onward. Garnacho decided to take matters into his own hands and scored a brace before Hojlund’s striker’s instinct set the Theater of Dreams alight with a winner in the 82nd minute. Scenes like that are full of history and joy for United fans, but it will take the full squad and more mental fortitude for it to become the norm after so long. The impending arrival of Sir Ratcliffe and co to take over the sporting matters may be coming at just the right time to see that revival, but not before a final test of the year away at Forest.

We truly appreciate our followers and hope this year has been full of fond memories. We’ll continue to bring our local take on the global game in the New Year, and we hope you’ll continue to tune in and join us along the way.

We’ll be eating Jojo’s peanut brittle and all the holiday leftovers while watching even more soccer in the next few days, but join us live from Chatham Tap Fishers at 7pm, follow along on Facebook Live and YouTube Live, or catch us at your leisure on our other platforms listed below. Please like, subscribe, and comment wherever you choose to find us. CHEERS!

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